


The Memory Snatcher

by AbandonedHope



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dementia, Gen, Memory Loss, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbandonedHope/pseuds/AbandonedHope
Summary: This is my first work
Kudos: 2





	The Memory Snatcher

I’ve been dreading this day, every night it haunted my sleep. 

Voices fading, memories lost. The building, large and imposing, always featured in my dreams. The cold stone that cuts and scrapes at your hands, a guard against visitors. The drive to that place always brought shivers of dread, the roads bumpy and weaved between trees that seemed dead yet remained green. For miles all you could see was green and brown, the fields of grass undisturbed and rotten forests a blur. The wall surrounding the building imposing. It was a required trip, no one could escape the place, there was no place alive that did the same job as them. You could only hope that you got to them before it was too late for you. The grass overgrown, untouched for hundreds of years. After all none of the inhabitants cared, or remembered nor would they leave alive. Their memories were stolen, their happiness stripped away until all that remained was a numb empty shell. The visitors were no better their happiness too stripped away by the horrors within, sometimes walking away broken and hollow inside, a poor copy of what they were before entering. 

The building was outside the city and even if the sun had not awoken yet the city had, cars humming their own tune, a beautiful but dirty orchestra playing an equally dirty symphony, the city sucking all energy out of the surrounding plants but still the grass grew long and fierce. Threats appeared at my door every month, a promise of early death of a loved one if the debt is not paid, the promise of the death of you if you do. They always pay though but their loved ones couldn’t be saved by money no matter what price was paid, no matter how many vows were made. Vows of healing that all they need is just one more month, two months. Bad news. More memories lost, hope lost. Maybe if you try more, maybe if you give them more time, an empty vow, a house of cards ready to blow down at the slightest breeze. 

The morning breeze through my window only helped to delay the inevitable; I walked past the sign that pointed to the hospital, knocking against bodies. Into the car, the sun coming up, people bustling to work, I went out of the city away from the groups promising healing, redemption. 

Towards the forest, towards the memories of heartbreak and lost hope. The winding path too familiar, I can remember the visits, how no memories seemed to be formed within the building. 

Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t remember what happened within but I keep coming back for closure or relief. I do not know but I am drawn back, for her. She was the life of a party, a friend with everyone, never left out, well until it hit her, and she started yelling and screaming and almost not caring anymore. Then she had to leave. No one was equipped to deal with her once it happened, but luckily the building was accepting new patients saying that everything was supplied. No need for belongings all they needed was money and they would handle her. She left the next day. 

Closer I come to the building. Not much has changed since the last time I came, the same haunting feeling choking me.I park, the gravel crunching against my feet, the path up to the building causing me pain with my every step. Bright, cheery posters promising a new life, a good life for cheap were stabbed into the ground, a promise that you would have your family back, that they would behave normally, speak normally. However like all other promises the only truth was that it was an act, an act of normality, a carefully arranged house of cards, destined to fall down. I wasn’t allowed to visit more than once or twice a month, they said it would interrupt the treatment, the final solution. Closer to the door now, I barely opened the door when a cheery assistant came asking question after question. Where I had come from and if had anything dangerous on me. As if I would dare bring anything dangerous into this place, who knows what would happen if I did. 

They all know me by name; I come too often for it to be normal. 

Fuelled by a wishful thought that she’ll be better if I keep coming, that maybe, just maybe she’ll get her memory back that she'll turn back to her old self, her true self. 

Up the stairs I turn left towards the thing that haunted my sleep, brought dread to each day, turn left then straight then right, knock on the door three times then come in, the routine engrained into every fibre of my body. 

“Hello mother,” I said, she hadn’t changed physically, the same stringy hair weighed down by grease and sweat. The nurses don’t get paid enough to do much else except feed and medicate them. 

“Who are you?” came the curious reply. My heart dropped. 

She doesn’t remember. The call said she was fixed, that she was fine, healthy and ready to go home. Where was the person they were talking about? 

All excitement drained out me, my body deflating in defeat; this must be a joke, right? She has to be fine, she has to be. This time should’ve been different; she should’ve been fine by now. Instead her hair is greasy, clothes covered in dirt and sweat. Doors bolted, warning after warning about her behaviour and medication in her food and drink. Anything to calm the ravenous monster inside her that feeds on her memories and as I close her door, hand back the key to her door and walk out the building all I can see is that word on her medical report, the one that changed her life and left her the state she is now, the one that haunts me all these years. Dementia.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, i really enjoyed writing this


End file.
